the lowery awards this year are packed. enormous, prodigious year. i'd like to read the journals

(finally!) watched sun don't shine, which lowery edited. watched pit stop, which lowery co-wrote. he's doing this thing where i like to watch what he's touched. can't, um, one can swap lubitsch for lowery touch -- 2013 was some kinda lowery touch year for sure

^you could click his photo as a link to the article. i'm going to pop the article, kind of like a prayer thing, and because oh i guess posting the article is more helpful:

29 Filmmakers Changing The Game

article's intro:

Quote

It’s an exciting time for movies. A decade ago, if you weren't among the established and well-connected, getting a feature film financed, made, and seen by an audience was a near Herculean feat. And, while being a standout director in today’s content-heavy climate is no piece of cake, the ongoing democratization of filmmaking has provided a whole new crop of auteurs-in-the-making with diverse and exciting approaches of synthesizing their singular visions and sharing them with the world.

And, in celebration of just that, we've collected 29 of the brightest emerging talents in the world of film, and charted their personal and professional journeys while highlighting the ways in which they’re reshaping their medium, one film at a time. To help us with our list, we consulted a series of industry insiders, including The Hollywood Reporter’s Scott Feinberg, Sundance’s director of programming Trevor Groth, and Mette-Marie Katz, manager of sales at L.A-based production company and sales agency XYZ Films.

article mentions:

Ryan Coogler, 27 Breakout Feature: Fruitvale Station"Coogler’s talent for narrative was first noticed by his creative writing teacher, while he was a star football player at Saint Mary’s College in Moraga, California. On her recommendation, Coogler began to pursue screenwriting and eventually moved to Los Angeles to study filmmaking at USC. A kind word from a professor landed Coogler a meeting with Forest Whitaker, who agreed to help Coogler develop a feature about Grant’s story, one that resonated deeply with the Oakland-native."

Drake Doremus, 30 Breakout Feature: Like Crazy"Doremus has come a long way since his first feature Douchebag screened at Sundance in 2010."

Ana Lily AmirpourBreakout Feature: A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night"We’re going to go out on a limb and say that Ana Lily Amirpour’s directorial debut A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, is the first of its kind: an Iranian vampire western shot entirely in black and white."

Justin Simien, 30 Breakout Feature: Dear White People "Dear White People began accumulating buzz online and was named Indiewire’s 'Project of The Year' in 2013. That led to a string of meetings with studios interested in developing the project, but Simien eventually partnered with indie financer Code Red films. After a breakneck 23-day shoot, Dear White People premiered at this past Sundance and wowed audiences with its fresh and insightful take on race relations in America, a Do The Right Thing for the Obama era."

Damien Chazelle, 29 Breakout Feature: Whiplash "If there’s such a thing as a golden ticket for young, emerging filmmakers, Damien Chazelle just got his stamped. His second feature Whiplash opened this year’s Sundance and according to Groth, it took the festival by storm. 'From that point, everyone was buzzing,' he says. The film was immediately acquired by Sony Pictures Classics, and took home both the Audience and Grand Jury Awards. Not a bad week for the 29-year-old Harvard grad."

Kate Barker-Froyland Breakout Feature: Song One"Kate Barker-Froyland first met Anne Hathaway on the set of The Devil Wears Prada all the way back in 2006. She was the director’s assistant"

Richard Ayoade, 36 Breakout Feature: Submarine"After becoming a star across the pond by nailing the nerd routine in the U.K. laughers The Mighty Boosh and The IT Crowd, Richard Ayoade was poised for a breakout stateside with a role opposite Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, and Jonah Hill in the 2012 raunch-fest The Watch. But, the movie flopped, and Ayoade never quite lived up to his next-big-thing billing. Luckily, he had another promising career in his back pocket."

Mike Cahill, 34Breakout Feature: Another Earth "When it comes to making movies, Mike Cahill is officially batting a thousand.""Having previously plied his trade as a National Geographic field producer and an editor on a couple of small-budget indie films, Cahill and his writing partner Brit Marling (who also starred in the film) became the co-darlings of the festival. A bidding war for the film's rights ensued and was eventually won by Fox Searchlight for close to $2 million dollars, nearly 10 times its budget."

Sebastian Silva, 34Breakout Feature: The Maid"Silva actually shot Crystal Fairy while waiting for Magic Magic’s funding to come together. There was a tiny crew and no full-length script, which meant the actors had to improvise most of their lines. Silva plans on adopting the same guerilla approach for his next film, his first in America, and hopes to finish shooting in 14 days."

Jill Soloway, 47Breakout Feature: Afternoon Delight"Soloway has been very candid about having felt as though she missed her opportunity to see her own vision realized on screen and that her role was to guide younger visionaries in the right direction. But, after her debut short Una Hora Por Favora premiered to favorable reviews at Sundance in 2012, Soloway immediately began work on a feature-length script about a stay-at-home L.A. mom (Kathryn Hahn who hires young stripper Juno Temple as a live-in nanny). With the help of some producers, she raised $800,000, and just like that, Afternoon Delight had its world premiere at Sundance the following year, earning Soloway the Directing Award. The film was acquired by indie distributors The Film Arcade and Cinedigm and was released theatrically in August of last year, solidifying Soloway’s late-blooming career as a fresh female voice in independent cinema."

David Lowery, 32Breakout Feature: Ain’t Them Bodies Saints"'David is as bright as anyone I’ve ever met at the festival,' says Groth. 'He’s a purist in the kinds of films he makes, with such attention to aesthetic, without sacrificing story. When it’s all said and done, he’s going to have one of the greatest bodies of work out there.'"

Gia Coppola, 27 Breakout feature: Palo Alto"With her debut feature Palo Alto, Gia Coppola became the latest member of cinema’s first family to assume their rightful spot in the director’s chair."

Joe Swanberg, 32Breakout Feature: Drinking Buddies"Joe Swanberg’s entire career was building up to his breakout hit Drinking Buddies."

Sarah Polley, 35Breakout Feature: Away From Her"It’s as exciting as it is true: Sarah Polley has only scratched the surface."

Zal Batmanglij, 32Breakout Feature: The Sound of My Voice"But, after the film's success, Batmanglij and his band of outsiders suddenly found themselves standing on the inside of the walls they had been peeking over ever since he graduated from Georgetown University and moved to L.A. Ridley Scott's production house, Scott Free, dropped $6.5 million on Batmanglij's second feature The East"

Josh Trank, 30Breakout Feature: Chronicle"Josh Trank, welcome to the big leagues. With just one film under his belt, the L.A. native’s career has skyrocketed after a small movie he made for just $12 million wound up grossing an astonishing $126 million worldwide. That film was Chronicle, and when it opened at number one in February of 2012, the then 27-year-old Trank eclipsed the likes of Steven Spielberg and James Cameron to become one of the youngest directors ever with a top-grossing movie."

Josephine Decker Breakout Feature: Thou Wast Mild And Lovely"The result is an audacious second feature based on the novel East of Eden, about a laborer who falls in love with a farmer’s daughter. It comes from an artist who has long been working outside the mainstream, but that may change swiftly as New Europe will be selling the film’s international rights, while Paradigm handles the North American rights."

Charlie McDowell, 30Breakout Feature: The One I Love"Just because Charlie McDowell was born into Hollywood royalty — his parents are actors Malcolm McDowell and Mary Steenburgen — doesn’t mean he didn’t pay his dues. Whether it was as a production assistant on Curb Your Enthusiasm or a consultant on Ken Burns’ Baseball, McDowell cut his teeth any way he could."

Dee ReesBreakout Feature: Pariah"The Nashville native has yet to make a follow-up, but has a number of projects on the go, including an adaptation of Toni Morrison’s Home and an HBO series that she’s developing with Viola Davis. Rees has come a long way since leaving the marketing industry to enroll in NYU’s graduate film program, where she met her mentor Spike Lee. (He was instrumental in getting Pariah made.)"

Gareth Evans, 33Breakout Feature: The Raid"'He has an innate ability to infuse an energy and an urgency into his films that is almost poetic,' says Katz, whose production company and sales agency XYZ films was instrumental in discovering Evans. 'The action never feels contrived or overwrought. It’s always innovative.' According to Katz, Evans had originally envisioned The Raid on a much larger scale, but didn’t have the necessary resources at the time. But, that was then. After the success of the first film, Evans had no trouble securing funding for The Raid 2: Berandal, which just recently screened at SXSW. And, the buzz has been deafening. According to Katz, Hollywood has already come calling. 'I have no doubt he’s going to become one of the major players,' she says."

Martha Stephens, 29Breakout Feature: Land Ho!"Her first film, Passenger Pigeons, examined how a small Eastern Kentucky coal town changes after the sudden death of a miner, while her second film Pilgrim Song follows an ex-music teacher who treks through the Appalachian wilderness in search of enlightenment. Both films were made on very meager budgets and both racked up the awards when they premiered at SXSW within two years of each other, making them the ultimate companion pieces. It was on her third feature, Land Ho!, that Stephens decided to branch out with the help of some old friends. Not only did she team up with her former classmate Aaron Katz, who co-directed the moving road-trip comedy with her, but she also enlisted fellow UNSC grad and indie-film icon David Gordon Green to produce the film, which was shot in Iceland."

Cary Fukunaga, 36Breakout Feature: Sin Nombre"While casual observers may just now be succumbing to the Cult of Fukunaga, the California native and former pro snowboarder, has been in the directing game for a whole decade. As a grad student at NYU, Fukunaga wrote and directed the short Victoria Para Chino, which screened at Sundance, won him a Student Academy Award, and was even shortlisted for an Oscar."

Destin Daniel Cretton, 35Breakout Feature: Short Term 12"What he had was last year’s breakout hit, a film he wrote based on his own experiences working at a foster-care facility for at risk teens. It was an eye-opening experience for Cretton, who made short films on the side as a hobby. He eventually decided to pursue filmmaking more seriously and enrolled in the film program at SDSU. An original short version of Short Term 12 was his thesis film, which went on to win the Jury Prize for U.S. Short Filmmaking at Sundance in 2009. But, it wasn’t until Cretton’s first feature, I Am Not A Hipster, earned raves at Sundance in 2012 that he was able to lock up funding for the feature version of Short Term 12."

Mona Fastvold, 32Breakout Feature: The Sleepwalker"Prior to directing The Sleepwalker, Fastvold had built an extensive filmography directing music videos for the likes of Sondre Lerche, Razika, Maribel, Chris Holm, JBN, The Megaphonic Thrift, and Civiltwilight, but what really helped secure funding was an accompanying short she made to convince people she had the chops to direct a feature. It worked. Thanks to funding from a combination of private equity money and a grant from the Norwegian Film Institute, she was able to make The Sleepwalker over a hectic 18-day shoot."

After being hired to co-write the screenplay, David Lowery is in negotiations to direct “Pete's Dragon” for Disney, multiple individuals familiar with the project have told TheWrap.

The original 1977 film featured an animated dragon interacting with a live-action cast including Mickey Rooney, Shelley Winters, Red Buttons and Sean Marshall, who played an orphan fleeing his abusive adoptive parents.

Lowery and Toby Halbrooks wrote the script, which reinvents the core of the original family film, which is not expected to be a musical this time around.

Lowery has experience working with young actors, having previously directed “St. Nick,” an indie movie about runaway children who have to fend for themselves in the wild.

Should Lowery close a deal to direct “Pete's Dragon,” it's unclear whether that would come before his adaptation of Kevin Powers’ acclaimed novel “The Yellow Birds,” which insiders suggest would take second position. Jeffrey Sharp and Jim Kohlberg's Story Mining and Supply Co. is developing that film, which is based on Powers’ experiences as an Army machine gunner in Iraq.

Lowery, Halbrooks and their Sailor Bear partner James M. Johnston recently produced Alex Ross Perry's movie “Listen Up Philip,” which debuted at Sundance in January and stars Jason Schwartzman and Elisabeth Moss.

It's hard to think of another indie filmmaker in recent memory who has taken advantage of his post-Sundance moment quite as well as David Lowery. After conquering the fest last year as a triple-threat (with three separate films) — co-editor on Shane Carruth's "Upstream Color," co-writer on Yen Tan's "Pit Stop," and perhaps most notably as writer/director on "Aint Them Bodies Saints," the 70's flavored romantic crime drama we called "a wholly engrossing and impressive piece of work" — Lowery got straight to work on figuring out his next project(s).

Currently on his lazy Susan of possibilities are the David Fincher serial killer project "Torso," the Robert Redford-led caper "The Old Man And The Gun," re-teaming with 'Saints' star Casey Affleck for the heady sci-fi "To Be Two," and the remake of "Pete's Dragon" which he was recently slated to direct. (Oh, he also found time to squeeze in an episode of Sundance Channel's "Rectify," and lent his name as producer to Alex Ross Perry's forthcoming "Listen Up Phillip," one of our favorites from Sundance this year.)

Lowery took a short break from writing "Pete's Dragon" (and likely three or four other possible features) to be the latest participant in our My Life In Movies series — whose previous interviewees include Terry Gilliam and "Hide Your Smiling Faces" helmer Daniel Carbone — and spoke about the varied cinematic influences that have shaped his life.

1. The first movie you ever saw. One of my earliest memories, movie-related or otherwise, is of seeing a man dunking a man's head in a toilet on television, and my mom telling me that this is what would happen to me if I ever joined the army. It wasn't until my senior year in high school that I would discover that this was a scene from "The Great Santini," starring Robert Duvall. My mother's admonition worked; I never had any inclination whatsoever to join the military, and still feel somewhat ill at ease about working on a war picture, which I now am.

2. The first moviegoing film experience you can remember.The first movie I ever saw in the cinema was Walt Disney's "Pinocchio," upon its 1984 re-release, which would have put me at three years old. I loved it, developed an early crush on the Blue Fairy (or rather, the standee in the lobby, which made a bigger impression on me than the film) and decided I wanted to be Pinocchio when I grew up.

3. The best moviegoing film experience you ever had.A 35mm screening of "Two-Lane Blacktop" at the Alamo Drafthouse. It was actually a double feature with "The Shooter," and Monte Hellman was there, but those details are irrelevant. It was "Two-Lane Blacktop," all on its lonesome, that gave me a particularly exhilarating high. I can't quite explain it, but I'd never experienced prior and certainly haven't since. I won't deny that external circumstances might have had something to do with it, but regardless, the film remains in my top four or five favorites of all time.

4. The first film you saw that you realized, you too could be a filmmaker.Predictably (hubristically), it was "Star Wars." Perhaps not even the films, but the Random House storybooks, which I took to heart long before I saw the movies (I grew up without a TV and was too young to see any of them in the theater).

5. The first movie you became obsessed with.If a 7 year-old can truly be obsessed, then see above. If 17 is a more reasonable age, see below.

6. The movie that always makes you cry (or the movie that is your emotional comfort food movie)."Buffalo '66." This was the first film that hit me on the level of emotional autobiography. Perhaps its to the detriment of my own character that it still does, but I hope not. The hot chocolate and the heart-shaped cookies at the end — they make my heart swell. The last time I watched the film, about six months ago, I looked up the actor who plays the donut shop clerk in that last scene. His name is Manny Fried, and I was sad to learn that he passed away in 2011. I hope he was proud of this tiny, perfect performance.

7. The movie that always freaks you out/makes you scared.David Lynch's "Fire Walk With Me" has a scene in it that scared me so bad that I don't remember it. I blocked the memory out — repeatedly! I've seen the film two or three times, and I can never remember what it is that scares me. It's probably not even a scene but a particular accumulation of images and sounds, arranged just so, that triggers whatever synapse in my brain release the waves of sheer terror I associate with this blank space in my memory of the film.

8. The movie you love that no one would expect you to love."Step Brothers," maybe, although anyone who knows me wouldn't be too surprised about that.

9. The movie that defined your coming-of-age/high school experience.There are too many of these to count. I'll go with "Romeo + Juliet," because it was released my sophomore year, right before that pivot point in adolescence when one begins the gradual tip towards adulthood. And also because I saw it six times in the theater.

10. The movie that defined your childhood.Since I already mentioned the 'Star Wars' movies, I'll shake things up in the mildest way possible now and cite the Indiana Jones movies. I don't think any of these choices need much explanation, although I would like to note that my favorite of the latter trilogy always was and still is 'Temple Of Doom.'

11. A film you didn't like at first, but later came to love."Gummo" is the example that comes to mind first. I rented it in high school and couldn’t get through 40 minutes of it. A few years later, after having a more positive reaction to "Julien Donkey Boy," I tried again and found it far more favorable. In the years since, I saw "Trash Humpers" in the theater three times, so clearly whatever rot Harmony Korine introduced to my brain has taken hold. I also did an about-face on Jim Jarmusch’s "Dead Man," although I think my negative reaction to it had more to do with the fact that I watched it with my dad, who found it not the father-son-bonding-over-a-Western experience he had in mind. All it took was a solo viewing for it to become one of my very favorite films, and one which I quote even more often than "Step Brothers."

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“Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” - Andy Warhol

Good job, guys! I found that really relatable. Pinocchio is the first movie I remember seeing as well. And there's nothing I enjoy quoting more than Step Brothers. Wish we could figure out what it was that got you in Fire Walk With Me...

Benedict Cumberbatch, Tye Sheridan and Will Poulter are now attached to star in the movie, which is still putting together financing. Based on the National Book Award Finalist novel by Kevin Powers, the story follows two soldiers, a man and teenager, who head to fight in the Iraq war.

The project is based on Kevin Powers’ novel about two soldiers who head out to fight in Iraq. The older man promises to watch over the younger, teenage, soldier.

Joining Cumberbatch on the cast are Tye Sheridan and Will Poulter. WME Global, CAA and UTA will handle US rights.

one aspect about this book is that it doesn't gloss over american imperialism even with the western lens it has

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"oh you haven’t truly watched a film if you didn’t watch it on the big screen" mumbles the bourgeois dipshit